ARIZONA
Jury returns guilty verdict in ’Baseline Killer’ case
PHOENIX — An Arizona jury Monday found a former construction worker guilty of killing nine people in the “Baseline Killer” case that terrorized the Phoenix area during summer 2006.
Mark Goudeau was accused of attacking his victims as they went about daily activities, such as leaving work or washing their car. He left most of them with their pants unzipped and partially pulled down. The victims — eight of them women — ranged from 19 to 39 years old.
Prosecutors had called the 47-year-old Goudeau a “ravenous wolf” driven by a hunger to rape women and kill those who didn’t cooperate with his demands. Defense attorneys insisted there were likelier suspects than Goudeau and questioned DNA tests linking him to the crimes.
“Hopefully, there’s going to be some closure in my mind now,” said Alvin Hogue, 53, whose wife was killed with another woman as they cooked food inside a lunch truck in Phoenix. His wife left behind Mr. Hogue and six children, including their then 4-month-old twin boys.
Goudeau, dressed in a suit, kept his head down as the verdicts were read and shook it from side to side periodically. The verdicts in the four-month trial mean he’s now eligible for the death penalty.
KANSAS
3 more blast victims found at elevator site
ATCHISON — A grain elevator official said searchers in Kansas have found the bodies of three more people killed in a weekend explosion.
The Saturday night blast killed six and injured two at the Bartlett Grain Co. elevator in Atchison. Three bodies were recovered earlier, but unstable concrete, hanging steel beams and other damage had forced crews to delay the search for the three found Monday.
Family members have identified one as 21-year-old Curtis Field. They said the other two were inspectors.
Tom Tunnell of the Kansas Grain and Feed Association said the grain inspectors worked for Kansas Grain Inspection Service, Inc., a private company based in Topeka.
Work at grain elevators can be dangerous at the end of the harvest when the buildings are full of highly combustible grain dust.
MINNESOTA
FBI probing possible link of American to Somalia attack
MINNEAPOLIS — The FBI is working to obtain the remains of a suicide bomber in Somalia, to try to determine whether he was one of at least 21 young Somali-American men believed to have left Minneapolis in recent years to join the terrorist group al-Shabab.
If the remains are confirmed to be those of Abdisalan Hussein Ali, it will mark the third time someone from Minnesota has been involved in a suicide attack in Somalia.
“I don’t understand,” said Nimco Ahmed, a Somali community activist in Minnesota, home to the nation’s largest Somali population. “It’s really, really painful to actually see one of the kids who has a bright future ahead of them do this.”
Al-Shabab said over the weekend that Abdisalan Taqabalahullaah, whom they identified as a Somali-American, carried out the suicide attack Saturday against an African Union base in Mogadishu. The attack killed 10 people, including the two suicide bombers, a Mogadishu-based security official said.
The militia group posted online a recording purported to be Taqabalahullaah, calling on others to carry out jihad. Omar Jamal, first secretary of the Somali mission to the United Nations, said friends of Abdisalan Hussein Ali listened to the recording and identified the voice as Ali’s.
OKLAHOMA
Police, drug lobby clash over meth bill
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma authorities have been at the forefront of the nation’s battle against methamphetamine, but they will soon have a tough new opponent: a politically connected, well-heeled pharmaceutical industry.
At issue is a proposal to require a prescription for certain cold and allergy tablets containing pseudoephedrine. Police and prosecutors say the measure is essential for curbing an out-of-control meth trade. Drug companies and their lobbyists are eager to keep pills such as Claritin-D and Advil Cold and Sinus on store shelves.
The brewing legislative fight poses some tricky politics for lawmakers in this conservative state, squeezing them between big business’ opposition to increased regulation and law enforcement’s urgent pleas to curb the meth trade. Similar bills are under consideration in California, Alabama and Maine.
• From wire dispatches and staff reports
Please read our comment policy before commenting.